Chore Whore (13 page)

Today,
one week after school has started, is the first day back at school for Blaise. He sat out his suspension without his computer, television or entertainment of any sort. I was hoping this would teach him that being suspended was no holiday; however, I don't think it did. He spent his time at the library researching geothermal gaseous explosions and earthquakes. Rather than deeming it punishment, he enjoyed his time off immensely.

After dropping him off at school, I go directly to Jock's house, a mere six-minute drive. Since I'd told him I'd be here at eight-thirty, he'd given me permission to enter his home without buzzing first to announce my arrival.

I let myself in and tiptoe past his office, where I see the pink teddy that I bought now slung across one of the blades of the ceiling fan, which runs on low, spinning it around and around. I hear Jock moaning behind his closed bedroom door. Tree must have spent the night. His conquests usually don't enjoy that privilege.

I quietly slip down the stairs leading to the range, flip on the lights and go directly to the cabinet containing Jock's collection of guns. I place my right index finger on the scanner and let it collect the data it needs to disarm and allow me access.

As I set the guns out, I realize the room is completely void of sound. This is how I imagine it would be in outer space. There are no indicators, auditory or otherwise, of the day springing to life within and around the house. I can't hear the sprinkler system turning on in the backyard or the system activating for its morning filtering of the pool and hot tub. I can't hear the master bedroom shower turning on or the heater in the basement lurching to start pumping out heated air. It's too quiet.

I double-check each gun to make sure there is no ammunition in the chambers. Then I proceed with the monotonous details of meticulously cleaning each one. I entertain myself by musing about what's going on in Jock's bed, directly above my head. As I push a wire brush through the gun chamber, I'm suddenly gripped by an impulse. I get up from my seat and turn the television monitor to face me. This monitor continuously displays pictures of the entire house and perimeter. I watch the images as I continue to clean.

As the camera scans Jock's office, suddenly Tree is standing in the doorway. I push a button on the remote to make the TV into a single screen showing only the scene in front of me. I watch as Tree enters his office. She's alone and clad only in a pair of panties. She closes the door behind her. I push the intercom button and can hear the whirring of the fan and a creak as Tree lowers her half-naked body into the office chair.

She picks up the receiver to the dedicated-fax phone line, dials a number, and sits back watching her teddy spin around. She speaks softly and I can only hear snippets of her conversation. She opens the top drawer of Jock's desk and rifles through the contents as she speaks. I know that the drawer contains his wallet, passport, car keys and credit cards.

In the bits of sentences I catch, Tree sounds like my sixteen-year-old niece. Her conversation is peppered with “No way!” and “Oh my God, no way!” The volume of her voice carelessly increases and I hear what sounds like an announcement. “Guess who I did last night?” Pause. Then “Oh, aren't you smart!” she coos. “Don't ask me stupid questions, just know that I did him.” She spins around in the chair. “I'm not sure I'm gonna make it to class today, maybe drill team, though.”

I wonder if Jock knows how young this one is. I watch closely as she flips through his passport, scans his checkbook, then takes a wad of bills and his credit card out of his desk, right here in front of my eyes.

I put the gun down and rush up the stairs. Running down the hallway and bursting into his office, I scare Tree. She covers her naked chest with one hand and tries to shove the credit card and money down into the cushion of the leather chair.

I must be a fright, huffing and puffing, madder than hell, holding out my hand to indicate she'd better hand over what she's in the process of stealing. She picks up the phone receiver she dropped.

“I'm gonna have to call you later.”

She hangs up without ever taking her eyes off me.

I stare down this little hussy, sitting here in Jock's office, ripping him off while he's in the shower washing off last night's sex. Between the two of them, I'm vacillating about which one is worse. It doesn't matter. I have a kid to feed, clothe and put through college. Who is Jock going to question if his money goes missing? The help. The thought of Concepcion or me getting blamed for this slut's thievery makes me fume.

“You better get your ‘ho ass' out of this house.”

Tree's eyes widen. “Excuse me? Who are you?”

“I'm Jock's assistant.”

I'm also a mom and Jock is one of my relatively helpless “kids,” led around by a brain not firmly attached in his head, but all too often tethered in southern regions.

“Now, without a fuss, missy, give me what you just shoved under the cushion, get your clothes on, and get out of here.”

She looks at me incredulously.

“I don't have any way to get home. Jock picked me up. Jock has to take me home,” she states with her lower lip starting to tremble.

“You can call your mama and have her pick you up at Sunfax Arco down on Sunset and Fairfax. Get it done and get walking before Jock gets out of the shower.”

Tree suddenly looks genuinely frightened. She throws the cash and credit card down and rushes past me. I wait in the hallway, feeling triumphant and, might I say, a bit cocky.

Tree rushes from Jock's bedroom wearing hip-huggers and a tight pink T-shirt over her bare breasts. With a nail file in one hand and her purse in the other, she brushes past me and bolts out the front door. Watching from the office monitor as she hurries down the front brick steps, I see her fumble with the permission-to-exit buttons, then leave.

A small trickle of wetness runs down my arm where Tree pushed by, and blood stains my sweater. That witch stabbed me! Counting the years it's been since my last tetanus shot, I go back downstairs to finish the job I was summoned to do. I watch the monitor as Jock goes room to room looking for Tree. When he enters the office, he grumbles as he sees the money and credit card on the floor.

“What the hell?”

He picks them up, then heads for the phone. I punch the button to the intercom to release it, turn the monitor back around and am suddenly plunged back into peaceful silence. But only for a moment. I hear crackling, then Jock's voice over an intercom speaker.

“Corki, what happened up here?”

“I kicked her out,” I say unabashedly, without any of the emotion I felt two minutes earlier.

“You did what? Come up here!”

I set down the guns and climb the stairs. Jock stands in the doorway, arms folded, with only a towel wrapped around his waist. I pray his towel doesn't fall off.

“Expound!”

I don't bother with stammering or nervousness.

“I was downstairs doing the cleaning when I looked up and saw Tree walking into your office. She started going through your desk and I saw her take your money, so I went upstairs and told her to leave. That's it. And if you don't believe me, rewind the tapes and you can see for yourself.”

Jock doesn't say a word, but continues staring at me, arms still folded. I keep thinking his towel's going to unravel and the situation is going to be about fifteen times more uncomfortable than it is right now.

“So, I'm going back downstairs to finish what I came here to do,” I say.

I turn around and head back down the stairs. Before I turn the corner at the bottom, Jock's emotions explode.

“Next time, mind your own fucking business.”

You're welcome.

I finish my job, gather my things and walk to the front door. Hanging on the doorknob is Miss Tree's teddy with a note stuffed in it telling me to throw it in the garbage can outside.

I slowly drive down the hill from Jock's house and make sure to pass by Sunfax Arco. Like an obedient child, Tree waits by the phone, looking angry. Still reeling from my good fortune of catching her in the act, I pull into the parking lot and roll down the window.

“Did you get someone to pick you up?”

She flips me the bird. I guess that means yes.

I pull Lucy's blinding-yellow
Ferrari 360 Modena out of the garage and back it up the narrow driveway toward the automated gate. The gate slides open and I go backward, up the hill and out blindly onto a relatively busy street. I don't like driving her car for this precise reason—it's impossible to see whether a car is coming around the bend.

Lucy's neighbors across the street will not allow her to put a fisheye mirror on their property—one that would allow her to see if a car is coming. I think they want her Ferrari smashed to smithereens. To see someone driving a car worth the price of a three-bedroom home in West Hollywood galls some people. I just don't want to be the person behind the wheel on the day the smashing occurs.

This car is so unlike Lucy. Unfortunately, the end of the lease on her Mercedes coincided with the start of her relationship with an Italian director who had a penchant for fast cars and faster women. Lucy pleased him by leasing the car in which he envisioned her. The relationship broke up in one month. The lease, however, won't expire for another two years.

After dropping the Modena off to Giovanni at the Italian Stallion service department, I go through my wallet for taxi fare. I'm frighteningly low on petty cash. I won't even be able to pay the taxi driver to get back to Lucy's. Ever since I was robbed in broad daylight a number of years back, I try not to carry too much money on me unless it's absolutely necessary. I lock most of my clients' petty cash in my safe-deposit box to access as needed.

The taxi pulls up and I get into the backseat.

“The City National Bank on Doheny and Sunset, please.”

I barely get my seatbelt on before Mustafa, the taxi driver, burns rubber and shoots down La Cienega.

My phone rings.

“Corki, tell me I'm not fucking amazing!”

“Who is this?” I demand.

“It's Esther, you idiot.”

“Oh! Okay, you're amazing,” I lie.

“Tuesday morning at eight-thirty your son, Eden and Star will all start at Envision Prep. You don't need an interview. You don't have to pay one red cent. You just need to go there beforehand and fill out all the paperwork. No more crackheads pandering to the kids outside school. Your son will receive the best education private school offers,” she states proudly.

“Well, Esther, this is amazing!”

“No, not ‘this,' I am amazing,” she demands.

“Pardon me, you are amazing. Thank you.”

“Glad you acknowledged just how fantastic I am. And you're welcome. Call Shelly and her sister and arrange a time to go take care of the paperwork. Do it this week because Envision is closed next Monday for a teacher-training day. Bye.”

Mustafa's driving
is getting me sick to my stomach. He rushes toward the stop signs and then abruptly crunches down on the brake pedal at the last second. The sound of metal on metal doesn't deter him whatsoever. I can't let go of the door handle to put my cell phone away. Ten minutes later, we pull up into the driveway at City National and I exit the cab, thankful to be alive. I instruct him to wait for me even though I'm not looking forward to his extreme maneuvering in the hills leading up to Lucy's home.

I wait in line for an authorized teller to sign the appropriate papers, then let me into the vault. We use her key along with mine to open my safe-deposit box.

Just as my teller leaves the vault, another teller escorts in a young blond couple with cameras hung around their necks. A strange clicking sound emits from the vault's doorway and the teller hurries out, closing a metal gate behind her, then shoving closed the foot-thick steel vault door behind her. The air suddenly fills with a bizarre, electrical burning smell. The wretched odor overcomes me and I start coughing violently. My throat burns from the acrid, pungent, gaseous smell, and my nose starts dripping blood down my face.

I pull my sweater up over my face and search my purse for my hankie. Tears are pouring out of my eyes and my nose is bleeding heavily. Choking on the gas, I huddle in a far corner, as far away from the door as I can get, cradling my safe-deposit box. Through my tears and burning eyes, I look over at the couple and can barely make out their shapes, seemingly bathed in purple, crouched in the far corner. I try to speak but can't without coughing so hard my lungs feel ready to explode. I wonder what Mustafa is going to charge me for making him wait.

What seems like forever passes, and the vault door is unlocked. The bolts slide back, the door opens and a German shepherd police dog, in a bulletproof vest, bursts in, barking and snarling. His vicious stance holds me and the other couple at bay, as if we're in any position to take him on.

Four members of the Beverly Hills Police Department enter, shouting orders, guns drawn. The police drag the couple off the floor, handcuff them and drag them out of the vault. One officer looks at me, radios an ambulance, then approaches and kneels down next to me. Even though my eyes are blurry, I can see that he happens to be a very fine-looking man.